


Like A Knife All Blade

by Suaine



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-07
Updated: 2012-12-07
Packaged: 2017-11-20 13:53:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/586076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suaine/pseuds/Suaine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The women in Spock's life have taught him the value of logic beyond the obvious.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like A Knife All Blade

**Author's Note:**

> This was always supposed to be a 5+1 type of fic, but I stalled on writing the conclusion about a year and a half ago. With the new trailer coming out, I think it would be a shame to let the work go to waste, because I love so many parts of this so much. Maybe the new movie will give me the spark I need to finish it.

1\. T'Pring

She calculates an above 50% chance that Spock will be in his father's extensive library, hiding between the affectation of ancient paper scrolls and stacks of Terran books. It is a place that appeals to his dual nature and despite what the other children think of him, Spock lives and breathes knowledge. One does not become first in almost all classes on pity alone. And the instructors are hardly going to allow that emotion to color their judgments. No, Spock must be here.

T'Pring does not call out or look for him under the terminal. She is seven years old and far above such childish games. His reticence is understandable, she herself has felt apprehensive about the negotiations between their families, and so she allows him to sulk on his own until he is ready.

There's a book lying open on the table and she reaches for it, intrigued. The Terran symbols mean nothing to her but the feeling of the pages under her fingers is fascinating. Not a match for the efficiency of their computer systems, but there is something very visceral about the experience. Unsure whether or not she enjoys the sensation and maybe a little worried that her preoccupation shows on her face, she reluctantly, but reverently returns the book to its position.

“I wish to inquire why you have removed yourself from the presence of our parents at this time.” The sentence neatly side-steps the appearance of curiosity by not actually being a question and she's momentarily proud of herself.

Spock peeks out at her from his cave-like hiding place. “I do not desire to engage in conversation.” He sounds very clipped, very proper. He will make a good Vulcan one day.

“The adults have come to an agreement.”

Shaking his head, Spock retreats back under the console. “I can say no.”

T'Pring frowns at the shadows that hide him from view. “I do not understand. It is logical. Our families have a long history of partnership and you are not unbearably stupid or deformed. I see no grounds for objection.”

Spock comes out again, an expression of disbelief on his face. He is very easy to read when he is agitated, but then boys tend to take a little longer to develop control and she is willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. He tilts his head to look at her from a slightly different perspective. She wonders if it changes his point of view.

“Why do you wish this? I am a hybrid, I may never be a true Vulcan no matter how hard I try.”

T'Pring rolls her eyes at him, tempted to smile. “Is a true Vulcan not one who masters his emotions, no matter how strong, to achieve a more complete understanding of the universe through science? Your grades are in the top .1 percentile.”

His face is all scrunched up. She thinks maybe that's what humans look like when they have one of their emotional episodes. “You looked up my grades.” It's not a question, but she nods anyway.

“Research is important.”

He tilts his head, regarding her. “It is.” She thinks this is something like an agreement, too, and more important than whatever the adults worry about with their reputations and political power.

He stands to face her, straight and a little tense, very much like his father if his father were a seven year old boy. “Our betrothal would be acceptable,” he says to a spot above her shoulder.

She fights the bubbling pleasure at the pronouncement. Very seriously, she says: “Your acceptance is noted.”

His gaze falls on the book and she can almost see him smile as he takes it up. “Do you perhaps wish to learn the archaic Terran language used in this book?”

He offers her more than knowledge and she takes it gladly.

+

When they first explore the tentative bond between them, they go at it with the detachment and curiosity of scientists. How far does it extend before the signal weakens? (Skin to skin for actual thoughts; a few paces for emotions depending on their strength and huh, how does he keep all that bottled up inside without showing it on his face? And the awareness of the other, the absolute certainty that there's someone out there, someone meant for them, someone to come back to, that never fades, not even when he goes to Earth for a visit with his human grandparents.) How does shielding work? (Badly, at first, but practice makes them a lot better at keeping things where they belong.) What frustration can they cause their immediate surroundings if they put both their minds to it? (A whole lot, there are explosions.)

They spend the next two years learning everything about each other and even more about the universe. He's fascinated by other worlds, by other cultures, and she finds this soothes some xenophobic edges in her she hadn't known existed. She wants to be a pilot more than she wants to take up her family's mantle of office.

They specialize in different areas and they both leave to study elsewhere. It's not a goodbye, but it's the end of something.

He decides to leave Vulcan before he is fully matured and she waits for him at the shuttle embarkation point. They have not seen each other for many months and it strikes her that she may never see him again, not until necessity brings him back to face ritualistic judgment.

“When the time comes, I will challenge your right to be my husband,” she says. She suddenly feels, despite her best effort to shut it down, that Vulcan is not really home without him.

He stands just far enough away that she can not sense any emotion under his carefully blank face. “That is your choice according to custom.”

Glad for the distance because her inside is churning with anger and fear and not a little sadness, she shakes her head. “It is logical that since my bond mate is so far out of my reach I should be free to make other attachments.”

She hopes that he can hear that she means him to have that same freedom. She will not be his excuse to shut himself away from all his new life has to offer. When he turns to leave, she is unsure, but one step forward decides her as his turmoil unfurls through the link. She runs to him and places a hand on his arm, making him face her one last time. The fingers of her free hand form the salute and her lips shape the traditional farewell. “Live long and prosper,” she says, but in her mind, all she can think is-

Good luck.

+

T'Pring should have been a pilot, but her life as a diplomatic aide is not so bad. Her talent for languages and clerical work is wasted on someone at the helm of a star ship. She finds the argument eminently logical. 

And yet-

“I do not know how you convince me to do this,” Stonn says, a little confused and a lot chagrined. She runs her fingers over the controls of the small merchant vessel as it soars through the lower atmosphere, controlled by her and her alone, and won't suppress the surge of satisfaction. This is where she belongs. She's young yet, who says she cannot be a pilot if she puts her mind to it?

A sudden, visceral sense of overwhelming panic floods her mind. It is not her own and still she cringes with the force of it. “Spock,” she says, grasping for Stonn's arm to ground her. She flicks the communications array back on and curses under her breath.

All communication channels light up with a notice of immediate planet-wide evacuation. How could they have missed this? This is an extinction level event and she pauses only for a moment, then-

“We're above Shi'Khar,” she says, calculating the time they have and how many people they can bring aboard and leave the vessel viable. It's the coldest logic she has ever had to use and later her heart will surely freeze with it, but now there is no time for doubt. “I will hold the ship as steady as I can but you will have to compensate for massive atmospheric disturbance when you use the transporter.” As new information comes in through her scanners and the federation transmission, she knows that this is the end of everything. Stonn is beaming up groups from the academy below and she waits as they're at capacity; and then she waits longer because there is just one life sign remaining in the facility and she will not have a child die alone.

Time is against them, their own world is against them, but T'Pring holds the ship steady and tries hard to shut out the spike of impossible pain and grief that reaches her through the bond. Spock is alive, yes, but a part of him has just died, and she knows why.

Amanda is gone and the pain is extraordinary.

“I grieve with thee,” she says quietly. Irrational as the action is, the storm inside her mind calms a little.

Stonn reaches for her hand and squeezes, once, retreats like he has not just tried to say goodbye, and forces his gaze to rest on the console. He's a better engineer then he's ever going to be a pilot but there is no one else she would want by her side while escaping from certain death.

+

After everything, after loss and revenge and despair, the dying scream of billions in all their minds, T'Pring manages access to a comm channel for a few precious moments. She's unsure where Stonn is at this time; he left to find out more about his missing sister, who should not have been on the planet when it disappeared, so there is hope yet, illogical, beautiful, dreadful hope.

Spock looks much the same as he had when he left Vulcan, except for his eyes. T'Pring knows that her own eyes have that shadow about them, an irrepressible expression of their shared grief. The magnitude of their loss hits her again; unprepared she has to look away or risk breaking apart completely.

“The council has given our people the use of a colony world,” he says after 0.3 minutes.

T'Pring gives him a reserved nod. “I am aware.”

“Logic dictates that I should join you there and help our people rebuild.”

Instinctively, she wants to deny him, but a Vulcan in the grasp of irrationality he presumes to be logical will not listen to a reaction based on emotion. It is his right and maybe even his responsibility, though she has to inwardly roll her eyes at his phrasing. “I will still challenge you.”

Spock raises one eyebrow, amused despite himself. “I would not expect anything else. I hear your chosen is a good man.”

T'Pring nods. “He is-” She thinks of all the things that make Stonn her equal, despite his lower aptitude in many of her favorite fields, of his skin and the way his mind feels like the warm sand of her favorite desert. “Solid. He is many things that you could never be. I do not wish to be the wife of a hero.” She says this with as much affection as she is allowed by propriety and custom.

The nod she gets in return is understanding and blessing at once. “I should still return with you,” he says, subdued as he has only ever been over the rightful punishment a Vulcan authority bestowed upon his all-too-human temper.

“You will not,” she says. To her own ears, her voice sounds like she cannot decide between an order and an assurance. “Your skills would be wasted here. There is a need for builders and caretakers, not explorers. You are much more useful where you are.”

It may not be enough to sway him. As a species, they have a tendency toward self-sacrifice that chafes oddly with their superiority complex. Surely, they are the best at what they do, so whenever something needs doing, despite personal difficulties, they find themselves shouldering all the responsibility. It is, perhaps, a mindset they can no longer afford.

“Your logic is compelling,” he says at last, and T'Pring finds herself missing him. A childish, selfish part of her would keep him close, not husband, but friend and brother, and yet she is not so enlightened that she can just ignore the urge to sacrifice her own desires for the greater good – or the good of a friend. Still, she has Stonn, and in the new order of their world pilots are worth their weight in latinum, so perhaps she can follow her own heart for a while.

 

2\. Counselor Lorena Noel, Starfleet Academy

The weather outside is too nice for drawn out counseling sessions so Lorena schedules the easier cases for the afternoon, when they can meet in the arboretum instead. Lt. J'Letek finds the plants soothing so that's going to work out nicely. She makes sure to check if there are any allergies she should be aware of and sighs as Jim Kirk's name pops up again. That boy is simultaneously the most self-destructive and damaged human she has ever met outside of clinical and remarkably resilient in the face of all that's happened to him. The most she can do for him is hold his hand – figuratively, the time when she would have taken him up on his not-so-veiled offers is long since passed – and hope that he can sustain the level of thickheaded determination that got him here at least until graduation. He'll be better once he's out in space, of that she has no doubt. His mother was the same way.

Her next appointment is a bit of a shock as she reads the vague preliminary. Spock, human-Vulcan hybrid, instructor and on track to be Cpt. Pike's new second. She very rarely gets active duty personnel as they tend to put their mental health on their ship's counselor or more often the chief medical officer. The dislike for head shrinking is something they appear to receive in their 'Welcome to Starfleet!' packages, along with a blatant disregard for their own limitations and a good helping of god complex. Sometimes that works out for the best and sometimes it leads to interstellar war.

As she rings him through, she empties her mind of every distraction and focuses on the task at hand. Counseling with telepathic species is always more fraught, even though it can be uniquely rewarding. Years ago, as a young Betazoid looking for adventure, she had not been quite as adamant about her own shields and it had led to a few tense personal situations and diplomatic incidents. It's not in her nature to be so reserved, but over the long years she's learned to take herself back and be as blank as virgin canvas.

“Mr. Spock,” she says and nods at the chair set at a sixty degree angle to her own.

The young man looks to be almost purely Vulcan, but his psychic emanations are decidedly not. She's been in close proximity to many Vulcans and has offered emergency care to quite a few in her time as ship's counselor, none of them were ever this tightly controlled and this volatile underneath. He feels like a balloon about to pop, outwardly calm but inwardly the pressure of his emotions strains against the thin skin of his control. For an unprofessional, wicked second she wants to take a needle and see what happens when he blows, but she shuts down the instinct viciously – she knows instantly that this, beneficial or not, would utterly destroy their therapeutic rapport.

He sits stiffly, his gaze directed at the clutter on top of her desk, somewhere behind her, and does not speak for a long, tense moment. Lorena tries to remember what she has heard about him from the gossip grapevine, but the knowledge eludes her. It appears that people tend not to find him very interesting when it comes to the juicy bits.

“I require your services,” he says at last, a little acidly. Oh, that is very interesting. He's certainly not here because he wants to be. She makes a note on her PADD to inquire about possible orders in that regard.

“I'm here to help,” she says, friendly but not overly emotional. He relaxes almost imperceptibly.

They talk around several theoretical issues that she knows are not why he's there. Maneuvering him into a level of comfort that allows him to let her into his walls of repression and privacy is a challenge. The problem is deliciously mundane when it finally comes out. “My relationship with Cadet Uhura has progressed in a very unpredictable fashion and I am at a loss as to how to proceed in the matter.”

Lorena fights a smile as she realizes how young he truly is. “Have you had any previous experience with romantic relationships?” she asks, trying not to sound probing.

Fortunately, Spock has talked himself into an open, vulnerable state that allows for a little bit of curiosity on her part. He's assessed her and judged her suitable for this level of access to his inner workings. It's more than she expected. “I am betrothed to a Vulcan woman,” he says, a little haltingly, “but we are not intimate sexually and are unlikely to consummate the relationship in future.”

Lorena frowns and taps her fingers on her PADD. “Yet you are contemplating such a relationship with Cadet Uhura. Is there a specific reason for your uncertainty in this matter?”

“I do not seek intimacy,” he says, almost petulantly, “but I would not presume to turn aside such an opportunity once it presents itself. However, a liaison with Cadet Uhura is illogical.”

“So it's not the idea of a relationship that bothers you, it is something about Uhura herself.”

Spock tenses, a sign that Lorena has hit on something pertinent. “She is a student at a facility where I am an instructor. I have familiarized myself with Earth customs in this situation and it is considered a questionable practice to engage in anything other than professional conduct with such persons.”

Lorena narrows her eyes, something niggling at the back of her mind. “So you have already decided it's a terrible idea and told her to back off?”

Spock sighs, the tension spilling from him like water from a broken dam. “I have made my reservations clear, but the cadet is very persistent.”

“If this is a case of harassment, I assure you these things are taken very seriously. Do you wish to file a complaint?”

That catches him out, almost as if he had not thought of it at all. Lorena suddenly has a flash of insight and smiles despite her best efforts. “No,” he says, a little greener in his cheeks, “that will not be necessary.”

“I see,” Lorena says, “you are not entirely unaffected, are you? The offer the cadet makes is not unwelcome.”

“I fail to see how that is relevant,” he says, ramrod straight and shit at lying.

Lorena sighs and rubs the side of her face. “It is relevant because you are here. If you had been able to reconcile your factual conclusion with your emotional reaction you would be in a lab or a class room right now.”

He tilts his head minutely and raises an eyebrow. She's caught his attention. “Please elaborate.”

The PADD stares up at her unhelpfully. This is a lot like that time she had the talk with her daughter about when and where to use her empathic abilities and how some species did not appreciate the kind of honesty that came to their kind naturally, especially in bed. “Your emotional reaction to Cadet Uhura is favorable, is it not?” Spock nods, but does not speak. “In human interaction that tends to supersede the more logical deterring factors. Simply put, Uhura has judged your logic to be lacking. There are no official regulations barring you from engaging in a relationship with a cadet who is not being instructed or graded directly by you. As I am sure you're aware.”

He deflates a little at that, and yes, he knows, so maybe the regs are just an excuse after all. Lorena folds her hands together and puts them over the PADD. “A human would say the logical choice to such a conundrum is to try and see what happens.”

Humans, of course, tend to crash and burn more often than not when it comes to romantic entanglements. See Jim Kirk, who's managed to get his heart broken three times in the span of a semester without ever acknowledging that there was anything to break. But they're not wrong, those humans, merely really bad at choosing the right people to put their hopes on. Unsurprising, of course, considering that without a shred of telepathic ability most of them stumble around a thick emotional forest in the dark without a flashlight.

“Vulcans are not equipped for such a casual approach to romance,” he says, stiffly and very pointed.

Wow, that one really has her speechless for a good ten seconds, bowled over by the arrogant presumption inherent in the statement. In her younger days, she's bedded a good number of Vulcans who'd beg to differ. Because she'd made them beg alright. She closes her eyes for a moment to reestablish a kind of equilibrium – to let a client goad her into such a strong emotional reaction is the height of unprofessional.

“I do believe that Vulcans have the capacity for interacting on a preliminary basis – a courtship, if you will. What this courtship entails is, of course, between you and Cadet Uhura and should be negotiated between you.”

Spock mulls this over for several seconds and then he stands up without warning, suddenly restless and almost giddy. For a Vulcan. “Thank you, Counselor. I believe I am needed elsewhere.” He beats a hasty retreat, but Lorena has a feeling he's not headed for a lab.

 

3\. Crewman Christiane Becker, USS Enterprise

Chris flips her dampening hair out of her eyes and curses the lax uniform requirements. If Starfleet had made a point about professional appearance and stringent hygiene standards, she probably wouldn't have taken that damn bet and she wouldn't have to chew on her own loosened pony tail every time she gets in a fight. This is worse though, the sweat from her exertion freezing in the cold, the strands turning into icicles within moments. She makes a mental note to write a stern letter to the Sergeant in charge of the uniform code. Really, though, at least she gets to wear sensible pants and unrippable shirts, unlike some people.

“I calculate a 73.1 percent chance of survival if you ascend to the surface alone,” Spock says, his voice thready with a little hint of exasperation. It is a sign of how bad things have gotten that she can recognize even that much emotion.

His body feels heavier than the average human of his stature, probably denser muscle mass, maybe a different bone structure. Chris is a little curious, but most of her faculties are concentrated on the simple task of pulling herself and an injured Vulcan up a steep cliff face in sub zero temperatures.

“With all due respect, sir, you did hit your head pretty hard.” Lots of green blood, but head wounds do that.

Spock makes a noise like a sigh, but that would be human. She pretends not to have heard. “Crewman Becker, you overreach yourself.”

She looks up at her strained leading arm and wishes she could shrug. “Looks fine to me.” It's a little funny how they communicate not in Federation standard but colloquial English, neither of them entirely certain on the thin ice of metaphor and innuendo that makes it the favorite language of one Captain Kirk. She quashes the urge to giggle at her icy irony.

“You must leave me, it is only logical.”

She pushes herself up and grasps the next impossibly cold hand-hold. Once she loses all feeling in her fingers, once she can't move them anymore, they'll likely plummet to an early grave. It's not an acceptable outcome. She just needs to be faster than frostbite. “I believe the phrase is 'tough shit' and also, it's hardly logical.”

“You presume to lecture me on logic,” Spock states, but there is disbelief and not a little smug arrogance in the tone. Chris grits her teeth and pushes up, up, up. If he's that out of control, they have less time than she thought.

She talks, because it keeps her head in the game and his attention from wandering. He probably has a concussion and the cold doesn't help, if he falls asleep that's it, end of the game. No extra time. “I do, actually. Remind me again what our chances are, like this.”

“30.8 percent chance of survival, with the most likely cause of death being a lethal fall out of great height.”

She shakes her head and imagines the icicles clanging together melodiously. It's more of a crackling in reality, but she's earned a little bit of fancy. “That is not going to happen,” she says between clenched teeth. “And what, sir, is the chance you have down there, alone, even if I make it up top and manage to contact the Enterprise right away?”

“That is irrelevant.”

Chris laughs until her lungs hurt, which isn't very long at all. “Irrelevant, he says, and yet here were are. The numbers, Mr. Spock. Sir.”

His voice is clear and precise, but his diction is slow and painful. Every syllable is a fight. “The chance of my survival at the bottom of the crevice are 0.0021 percent.”

She nods, uselessly. “I'm somewhat surprised it's not simply zero.”

Spock huffs and she feels the cold breath on her neck. Not warm enough even for a Vulcan. Not a gesture a Vulcan, even this Vulcan, usually makes. “I took into account all manner of possibilities, even those thought to be so unlikely as to be negligible.”

“Sure,” she says, biting the inside of her cheek to seek even the smallest pain. She's getting numb all over. “Like divine intervention, acts of god, that sort of thing.” She intentionally doesn't say Jim Kirk so as not to jinx it. He grumbles something about irrational beliefs and humans, but doesn't correct her. “Anyway, what you're saying is that your chances go up from no chance at all to a little better than the captain beating you at chess.”

“This is a correct, if slightly vague, evaluation of the situation.”

“Then here's the logic of it.” Her right foot slips just before she's put all of her faith and weight on it, and stops, frozen. A second from death, her heart hammers in her chest like a hangover from Romulan Ale. “Your life is worth more than mine.”

The words echo and shatter to pieces against the walls of ice. It's a truth that's not particular uncomfortable, merely logic at its simplest. Vulcans are not the only people who practice logic after all.

“I find your principles flawed.”

She grimaces as something cracks and she can't feel whether it's ice or the bones of her fingers. “Flawed perhaps but no less true. Vulcans are utilitarian, are they not?”

“One axiom taught to all Vulcan children is-” His voice catches and for a long moment all Chris can hear is the sound of her own blood rushing through her veins. “I was taught that the good of the many outweighs the good of the one, but that does not mean-”

“It means, Mr. Spock, that you are full of shit. As a hybrid, a child of two worlds if you will, you are unique and precious. You've had extensive training that cost the fleet more than any fifty crewmen taken together. And Captain Kirk is going to kill me, resuscitate me and then kill me again if I intentionally left you down there to die. Sir.”

He's quiet then and for a while she climbs in silence, unsure how far they've come or how much she still has to go. The light fades into a murky twilight and their time is running out. She focuses on the rhythm of her aching limbs, the push and pull that brings them closer to rescue one painful inch at a time. She's so far gone that she doesn't hear him at first.

“I concede that perhaps my insistence was motivated also by a certain regard for your life.”

“That's unexpected.” Her breath comes shorter than she'd like and talking is difficult. “Understandable though. No race can submit to hard logic without a grounding in compassion and a heightened appreciation for all life. My people... well, I'm sure you know.”

“I'm aware of Earth's history.”

Chris thinks about the things she heard in basic training, the casually vile and the accurate deconstruction of her worth. Academy graduates are a different beast, the enlisted personnel have their own ideas about what grudges to keep. “It was logical, in a way. Brutally and callously so. What they did, what they allowed to happen – they must have been masters at constructing a reality in which their actions were necessary or even beneficial, while the rest of the world recoiled in horror. They have left us with a debt that can never be repaid.”

Spock makes a questioning noise, a soft hmm that sends a chill down Chris' spine. “You feel guilt for something that happened long before you were born.”

Chris grits her teeth. “Few do, now. Someone has to remember.”

“You were taught this?” He sounds almost indignant on her behalf.

She remembers the stories her great-grandmother would tell, old stories that had no place in a united federation of planets. They had been stories about the inhumanity lurking just beneath the surface of a people, of any people. They had been stories of caution and warning. Do not let this happen again, fight the all-too-human impulse to regard compassion with disdain.

“I was taught duty to more than just myself.”

Spock laughs; it's a coughing, gurgling sound and incredibly haunting. “You do not believe that one life is more important than another, or that this importance can be measured in the objective worth of their potential and actual accomplishments.”

“As it happens, I do not.” She pushes further and something in the quality of the light changes, wind tugs at her more insistently and she can hear a distinct whine. It gives her impossible hope.

“But you do believe,” he says, almost in awe with his own conclusion, “that your own life is worth less than others. Why?”

For the longest time she cannot answer him. The question lurks at the back of her mind, but climbing has become unbearable, painful and the central tenet of her existence. Distantly she's aware that her hands have stopped bleeding, that she's worn them ragged and there may be consequences even if they survive. Nothing matters though, and she pushes the fear out of her mind. She slips more often now, can't feel her hands enough to find a proper hold. Her fingers are permanently stuck in a claw-like position, her legs burn with the strain of pushing two people up a mountain.

“Crewman,” Spock says, gently as if she were an easily spooked horse. There is a click she remembers, a click that sounds like hope. “I have a signal.”

They're not at the top yet, this isn't how it's supposed to go, but she's so grateful that hot tears escape to run down her cheeks. She doesn't believe that they would have made the last meters – she knows they would have died and when she hears the words “transport” and “medical assistance” she is flooded with relief so strong it threatens to make her faint.

The last words she hears are gentle and very human. “You can let go now. It is going to be alright.”

+

It's the beeping that wakes her, the incessant, mind-numbing beep of a machine too close to her head. Beep. Beep. Beep. The frequency picks up a little and suddenly there is a flurry of activity with her at the center of the storm. Someone shoves a piece of plastic into her mouth and tells her to suck, and oh, blissful cool wetness. She's parched and the slightly sweet, fragrant liquid tastes like heaven.

“There you are,” says a gentle, lilting voice she should recognize. “You gave us a bit of worry there for a minute.”

Foggy, fuzzy thoughts flit through her mind, too fast to catch and too nebulous to hold on to, but she feels content in the knowledge that whatever it was that put her here, it was worth it. “Spock,” she says, because that's one thing she remembers – too much green blood and not enough time.

The voice chuckles and someone squeezes her shoulder very carefully, little more than a nudge. “A little banged up but nothing that a hypo and some rest won't cure. He's a sight better than you, Missy, so don't you dare worry about him, alright?”

She smiles then and tunes out the rest of the words as they lull her into a much more natural sleep.

+

Ten increasingly frustrating days in sick-bay tell her one thing. As much as Dr. McCoy doesn't like to give up, her hands are never going to be the same again. She's got nothing but an insignificant pension to look forward to once they get close enough to a starbase to drop her off and that hurts worse than the burning of her dead flesh. She breathes through agonizing physical therapy and puts on a smile, because pity is the last thing she needs.

At night, when her body still aches with the memories, she hates Spock a little. Unfair as it is, this is the price she pays for his life. Then she remembers exactly who made that choice and hates herself instead. It's better in the mornings, when Medic Chapel forces her out of bed and doesn't relent until she's sweaty and sore and a lot less melancholic.

Spock doesn't visit, but the captain does, and it's the most awkward conversation Chris has had in her life. He looks at her almost guiltily, as if he's got something to be sorry for.

“Your effort and valor during your last mission were more than commendable, Crewman Becker.”

She wants to roll her eyes at his failed attempt at gravitas. He's not that kind of commanding officer and they all know it. That's why they would give their lives for him. “Thank you, Sir.”

He rubs the back of his neck. “If there is anything I can do for you...” He trails off as his gaze lands on her ruined hands and he winces. Suddenly Chris is very tired of this conversation, and turns away enough for him to get the hint.

Later her entire unit shows up with sweets and balloons and replicated flowers. Kevin “Cupcake” Smith gives her a teddy bear with a hook for a hand, because Kevin is a fucking asshole, but he knows how to get under her skin in the right way and she's tempted to kiss him just for the groans his gift elicits from the rest of the team. The Chief punches her in the arm and grins wistfully as he says, “We're going to take care of you, kid. You just get back on your feet now.”

+

McCoy declares her fit for light duty, but she's at loose ends. The physical requirements for security personnel are harsh and she knows that the Chief won't let her go out like this. She couldn't hold a phaser if her life depended on it. In more ways than one, it does.

She stalks the corridors unsure of her destination, but driven by unfinished business. There is something that needs doing and if she's anyone she's that woman who'll do what needs to be done. The surprise at finding herself in front of Spock's quarters is minimal.

He looks almost casual when he's not in uniform. She doesn't enter the room, merely stands in the doorway at what passes for parade rest. “Sir, I-”

“Crewman Becker,” he says, cutting off any kind of advantage she had in the surprise. “the captain has put you up for a medal of valor. It is one of the highest honors Starfleet has to offer. The committee require my testimony.”

She swallows whatever it is that lodges in her throat like an uninvited guest. “I don't know what-”

“I do not believe your behavior should be rewarded.”

She gapes at him, momentarily at a loss for words. The gall of him, after everything, it just... “You don't believe my behavior should be rewarded?”

Spock narrows his eyes and even though his quarters are slightly warmer than the rest of the ship, she feels a chill. “That is what I said, Crewman.”

So maybe she doesn't want the damn medal, the damn retirement that comes with a pat on the back and a few pitiful glances, maybe she's nowhere near ready to let go of this life and be a worn-out veteran somewhere in the alps, telling her story to simpering tourists. But this is a slap in the face and she isn't damaged enough to let him walk all over her. “Excuse me, Sir, but that is a load of horse shit.”

“You forget yourself, Crewman,” he says all calm as you please. She fumes inside, but the fury is cold and cruel.

“On the contrary,” she hisses, “I am perfectly aware of who I am and what I've done. I've saved your life, you ungrateful bastard. Not that I expected tearful thanks or anything, but a little bit of consideration would not go amiss.”

“I have considered your actions and found them inadequate. You defied orders on the assumption that your life meant little and therefore any sacrifice you made or danger you endured is meaningless.”

She wants badly to clench her fists and punch him in his superior Vulcan face and damn the pain that would come with it. In the absence of immediate violence, she feels herself once again deflate and become resigned to the verbal abuse, but this time she won't have it. For years others around her thought that she deserved to be put in her place, for her heritage, for her lacking aptitude in the more academic areas, for any odd reason under the sun.

“You are such an asshole, I can't believe I risked my life for you.” She smiles darkly and shakes her head. “Maybe I should have left you down there after all. But no, that's not who I am, and it doesn't matter who you are, how fucking precious you are to the fleet or to the captain or whatever. This choice was about me, about the kind of person I am. I saved you because it was the only thing I could do and I'd do it again. You sanctimonious prick. Sir.”

She's only vaguely aware of the expression on his face, the way his eyebrow raises in something- amusement, maybe. “In the process of ascertaining your suitability for the honor Starfleet wishes to bestow upon you, I have examined your academic record. Your test scores have marked you as unsuited for Academy education.”

Throwing up her hands in frustration, she sighs loudly. “What is this, an exercise in destroying my ego?”

Spock nods minutely in her direction, his focus on her hands. “You may not be able to return to your service as a security operative on this or any other starship.”

She frowns and tries to see what he sees. The truth is that McCoy hasn't given up on her yet, that there is still a chance she might be whole again, and maybe she's not yet done fighting. “I'm not giving up if that's what you're implying.”

“I do not imply, Crewman. However, should it come to that eventuality, there is another option. The nature of a mission such as ours often necessitates field promotions and cross-field specializations. There are regulations that may apply to your case and I'm willing to submit, along with my testimony on your conduct during our last mission, a letter of recommendation to include you in the command track mentoring project. You showed remarkable strength of character and unrivaled tenacity. As for your test scores, I am led to believe that your failure to perform to standard is due to an accessibility issue rather than a lack of intelligence on your part.”

Speechless, she can only stare at him for a moment or two. “Wow, if that's your way of saying thank you, let me be the first person to alert you to the fact that you really suck at it. But, uh, thanks. I appreciate it. I think.”

“If that is all?”

The bastard looks like he's laughing on the inside, but Chris is feeling lighter than she has in days. She turns with an awkward salute and walks away, head held high and a bit of swing back in her step. Command track. Perhaps whatever the future holds, it won't be so bad at all.

 

4\. Nyota Uhura, USS Enterprise

This is how it begins.

She's furious when she hears the announcement of her assignment. It's not a bad ship, not at all, but she was slated for the Enterprise. She knows because she's the very best at what she does, she's aced First Contact protocols, designed her entire schedule around an exploration vessel, not a goddamn courier, and Spock is an asshole. She loves him, but right then she wants to rip his head off and stick it up his logical rectum.

That, of course, is probably unlikely to get her what she wants more than anything, so she fumes to herself and tries to collect her anger into a tiny ball at the center of her, fuel to the fire, but no longer a storm that consumes her. Spock doesn't react well to her displays of strong emotion, never has. He responds best to a logical argument, flawed as the principles behind it may be.

The principles right now are: dammit, I am supposed to be on that ship, and, there will be no more hand-licking _ever_ if you don't rectify that mistake fast, Mister.

His explanation is maybe a lie, but whatever the true reason is for him not to want her on the Enterprise it stings that he'd try such a line on her. Again.

Fuck appearance of favoritism, the whole of the damn fleet is nepotism central. She's worked hard, harder than anyone who has an uncle who is an Admiral or is the kid of some long dead hero. It's her time to be rewarded. It's her time to be someone who kids will want to play when they engage in back yard fantasy.

(“No, no, I want to be Uhura the Comms Specialist.”

“I want to be her, she's so _cool_!”

“But you're a boy!”

“Who cares, boys can be Uhura too!”)

She's got an active imagination, okay? She played Kelvin disaster with her cousins when they were young, and she'd been George Kirk enough times to know what it's like to be a big damn hero. Too bad his son is such a cock. Anyway.

Spock changes assignments around and later she'll remember this moment, the absolute nonchalant ease of it.

+

This is how it goes.

They're all excited, a soft buzz of energy running through the ship like low-current electricity, and Uhura can't stop smiling. Their first mission. Their chance to leave an impression. Even then a thread of worry runs underneath. The fleet, made up of space dock debris and untested vessels and manned by cadets as it is, is a force to be reckoned with, more of a force than a simple support mission suggests. Their marching orders imply that someone is looking to evacuate a planet, not help out a couple of farmers with a bit of flood.

Kirk bursts her happy little bubble of efficiency and professionalism, his hands swollen and his tongue lolling out of his head. She takes him seriously despite herself, there's something about his dogged tenacity that makes him, if not trustworthy, then at least believable, and she follows him up to the bridge.

It all happens so fast after that.

She's listening for Romulan transmissions without luck when the ship falls out of warp into a picture of hell. The moment right after the space around Vulcan comes into view, nothing but debris left of the fleet, she will never forget. It feels like all air has gone from her lungs and for a single, dreadful moment she thinks she's going to die.

Then activity blossoms up around her like daisies in spring and she's swept up in the need to do something, anything, to save this ship and figure out what the hell is going on.

Kirk is a crazy idiot, but she's a little bit impressed by his grace under pressure, probably the same thing that got Pike to recruit him in the first place. Then between torpedo hits and inevitable death she gets a signal, something that hijacks her systems and splashes itself all over the main view screen. A Romulan with empty eyes and an impressive grasp of Federation Standard demands for Pike to give himself up, a move that leaves the Enterprise paralyzed.

She's a little worried about Pike's mental status when he not only goes to get himself killed by highly advanced aliens but also makes Kirk first officer. That has got to be a sign of psychotic deterioration if she's ever heard of one. But Spock returns to the bridge with a determined set to his shoulders and they all watch as the away team hurtles toward the surface.

Then there is nothing to do but wait in the silence. The bridge hums with activity, still, but all sounds are subdued like a held breath. Her heart beats faster the closer the three men get to the platform and she cannot tear her eyes away from the screen that traces their progress. Chekov's small voice dominates the room, counting down distances, until-

“Olson is gone, Sir.”

The disbelief in the boy's tone tears her open and sows a seed of sorrow. She remembers, suddenly, the moment before embarkation, when she made Spock change her assignment. She doesn't know who took her place on the Farragut. She doesn't know who died for her, but the silence outside their vessel, the lack of any kind of signal, even automated rescue buoys, proves to her that they did. Most of her friends are dead.

Then Kirk hits the drilling platform.

Everything around her explodes into action and she, too, finds herself energized with it. When – not if – Sulu and Kirk succeed in their mission the Enterprise needs to be ready for whatever comes next. They are alive only because that Romulan wants them to bear witness and when they throw a wrench into his plans he'll swat them out of the sky.

Whatever is going on down there, it doesn't last long. The jamming signal fizzles out, their senors and transporter ability are back and for a moment she's too busy to think. Too busy to feel, too, and that's a blessing. When Chekov announces the death sentence for Spock's planet it doesn't register at first, what it means, the overwhelming horror of it. At the back of her mind she feels the weight of the ship wrecks just outside their hull. She can't deal with that right now.

There's talk of singularities and she opens all channels, blasting whoever is able to hear it with the knowledge that their world is about to end. General evacuation of a planet is nigh impossible in any case, but they have mere minutes and there are no ships in orbit. Not anymore. She can't speak to the start-up time of a grounded Vulcan vessel, but even if they make it out of the atmosphere, there's still the Narada looming like a hungry dragon.

Spock darts out of his seat, his face as expressionless as she's ever seen it, but there's something so tense about the way he holds himself, all his motions controlled so as not to fall to pieces. She wants to go with him, wherever he needs her to be, but he shuts her down pretty efficiently, which is the least she'd expect from him. This is a thing between them that may never resolve itself – he needs her to be a stone when she wants to be fire. She's outraged on his behalf, scared of what comes next, and she returns to her station with her bottom lip caught between her teeth.

A few lone ships show up on her sensors, science and trading vessels, and she directs them to the Laurentian fleet – if there's any safe place in the galaxy right now, it's there.

Kirk and Sulu drop out of the sky and Chekov leaves the bridge to a young Ensign with wide eyes and no command experience whatsoever, not that Chekov has much more than that from the looks of him. The girl defers to Uhura for some reason, as if she could possibly know what to do. Between Hannity and her and a girl she recognizes from Xenobiology 102, they're stranded in a war zone with no command certification and no one willing to make tough choices.

If they don't leave soon, the Enterprise may not make it out of the event horizon. Uhura shakes her head. “We can't, not yet.”

“We'll die here,” Hannity says with a wry grin. “It's not really how I imagined this shake-down cruise.”

“No kidding,” Uhura says, because this isn't anything people taught them at the Academy. A thought occurs to her and she checks to see if the transporter bays are working the proper emergency protocols, and yeah, there's a steady, if terribly slow, stream of survivors beaming up to their ship.

She swallows, closes her eyes for a moment, and does her job to the best of her ability.

+

Spock's pain is like a deep, unfathomable pond. Her own runs thundering like a river, violent and unstoppable. She wants to help him, shutting her own needs down with iron will, reaching out to him, always reaching out, and never asking for anything in return. When he leans into her, it's like a small victory, but nothing like this can last. He's ashamed of his own weakness where she needs them to be weak together.

He asks her to wear a mask of professional conduct and procedure. She can do that. She'd do anything to ease his suffering. That much is clear – that he is in a kind of pain no one should have to bear. The loss of his mother, the loss of his home, the psychic backlash of six billion telepaths crying out in fear and desperation. There is nothing she would not do for him.

But his own masks make him distant. He needs to keep himself apart or risk a complete breakdown and she understands, of course she does. And so she is alone when there is nothing left to do, no more survivors to settle into temporary quarters, no more adrenaline in her system, and the crash is debilitating. She cries, angry at the world, angry at herself, she cries alone in her quarters, fighting against a tide of despair that threatens to pull her under.

Her friends are dead, Luke and Gina, Jason, K'thol, that hilarious kid from Betazed who always used his telepathy to win at cards, the quiet colonist – Lucy? - who worked so hard because she was the first in her family to be anything other than a farmer.

Gaila.

Uhura sobs quietly, too aware that the inner walls of the ship are less than soundproof. At some point she falls asleep. When she wakes up the pain isn't gone, the ghosts haven't dissipated and their weight is still crushing the life out of her, but she's stronger for it. She gets ready for the next shift with a new sense of purpose. Maybe she survived for a reason. Maybe she can repay the debt she owes by helping to make sure Nero will never hurt anyone again.

+

She kisses Spock before he goes to defeat Nero and it feels like goodbye.

+

They limp back to Earth with no warp core, survivors that begin to show signs of post-traumatic stress – a rather more terrifying and volatile expression in Vulcans than one would expect – and a morbid preoccupation with death among the crew that gives her chills every time Chekov makes up new and horrible things that could happen to them on their way home. It's a long way at impulse speed and she's this close to murdering him in his sleep.

“Doctor McCoy has told me about the effects of prolonged exposure to vaccuum,” he says, almost excitedly, and all Uhura can think is _Gaila probably died like that._

The final tally of life lost ranges so high it is hard to imagine. Vulcan society has been obliterated. Artifacts, culture, thousands of years of history, and not even so much as a shred of dust to mark their passing. Everything in orbit around Vulcan at the time of Nero's arrival and the entire second fleet, including three new Constitution class ships and several support vessels, was destroyed, the debris sucked into the black hole at the heart of the planet.

Her own loss feels small against that. They all knew, from the moment they signed up as cadets, that serving in Starfleet carries a risk of death. As a military force, even one so obviously geared toward exploration and aid work, Starfleet is a dangerous occupation. Still the loss of her friends has torn something inside her and she's looking forward to some planet-side leave.

She has a few decisions to make.

+

The admiralty offers honorable discharges and medical discharges to anyone who served on the Enterprise during the Vulcan crisis.

Uhura goes home to visit her mother, but the dry heat reminds her of Vulcan, even though she's never even been to the surface. She sleeps badly and her mother gives her a few worried looks over breakfast.

“Honey,” she says, a little distractedly over reading the morning news on her PADD. Somewhere between the newest vids and a minor government scandal, there is a story about a little Vulcan girl who lost her ability to speak. There are a lot of stories like that, vulturous tabloid exploitation of a people's suffering. “You've not eaten a thing. Are you alright?”

She stares down at her soup and thinks of the dishes Spock offered her once, when she asked to sample the cuisine of his world. It is always like that between them, a dance in which she always leads and sometimes even has to play the music. “I'm not hungry,” she says, wondering at the fucked up timing that has her realizing the lack in her relationship with Spock when it's a necessary anchor for both of them. She loves him and she needs him, now more than ever, but she's not sure that she likes him all that much right now.

It's perhaps the most telling of all that she's certain he won't have any inkling of her concerns until she presents him with the well-reasoned argument and her damning conclusions.

+

She does not have her marching orders when she returns to San Francisco. She has nursed a simmering anger for days now, ever since she got a message from Sulu that the gang is getting back together and what a blast it will be to serve on the Enterprise's first real long-term mission and isn't she just excited? Excited is the word alright. She's so excited, she'll just walk into headquarters and give Jim Kirk a piece of her mind. Top of her class, qualifications in structural linguistics and code breaking, she's a goddamn goddess of a comms officer and he better damn well take her on that mission or hell will open up and swallow him whole. Or something.

In situations like this it sometimes helps her to focus and attack a problem by the tried and true method of “what would Spock do?” On the shuttle trip she makes a list of reasons for Kirk to forget whatever is riding his ass and give her the position. It's a long list, with annotations.

Her confidence falters a little when she gets a personal invitation by a stern looking Kirk to meet him in a temporary office somewhere deep in the bowels of a side building Starfleet usually uses for overflow when there are visiting dignitaries using the main facilities. Simply put, Kirk's stuck in a basement and that tells her something about the regard the admiralty has for him. He got his ship and his crew, but they're not giving him an inch more than they have to.

He has a determined expression when she stalks through the door, not bothering to knock. He should be expecting her.

“Lieutenant Uhura,” he says, his eyes glued to a PADD in front of him. She startles at the title – without her orders she's still technically a cadet.

“That's news to me, Captain,” she says, fighting down her undue anxiety. “Am I to assume that you already have an idea about my assignment?”

Kirk rubs the back of his neck, the skin there flushed in embarrassment. Her eyes narrow. “Ah, now, that kind of depends on what you mean by idea.”

“Sir,” she says between her teeth, “with all due respect, I'm not here to beat around the bush.”

He grins at her, suddenly. “You're a hero, too, you know. You could go anywhere.”

So that's it. He wants her to go quietly, maybe take with her whatever rubs them wrong when they're in the same room. “I'd rather you not make that choice for me. I've brought my transcripts and letters of recommendation-”

“Wait,” he says, holding up a hand. She falls silent. “What are you talking about?”

She frowns and throws the PADD at him. “I want my place on the bridge back.” Crossing her arms, she waits for his reaction.

Of all the things she expects, Jim Kirk loosening a shaky laugh is not one. “Wow, okay, this is awkward.”

“There's no one better-”

“Yeah, no, I know. That's why I called you here. To convince you. I want you at my comms station, I just-” He waves a hand around in a vague, meaningless gesture (except for Orion, where it's something lewd, oh Gaila).

“I don't believe this,” she says, stunned by how ridiculous the situation appears. “I've prepared documents. I thought you were blocking my assignment because you're an asshole who can't deal with a bridge officer who refuses to sleep with him.”

Kirk grimaces like he's bitten on something sour. “Hey now, I'm not that kind of ass. There are plenty of bridge officers who don't want to sleep with me.”

She snorts, mostly out of surprise rather than genuine amusement. “Right. So I've got the position?”

Grinning widely, Kirk nods. “If you want it, it's yours.”

Uhura rolls her eyes. “Of course I want it. It's only the most cutting-edge ship in the fleet on a long-term exploratory mission that practically guarantees first contact.”

“Right,” Kirk says, hand rubbing at his neck again, a sign of almost endearing uncertainty. Almost. He's still Jim Kirk and his particular brand of shallow charm does not work on her. “So basically I worried my pretty little head for nothing. With any luck my other problem is half as easy to solve.”

She raises her brow, aware that it's a gesture she picked up from Spock at his most incredulous. “Other problem?”

And suddenly it occurs to her that she's never seen his full attention directed her way, because that brilliant smile does something to her insides. “Hey, you know, I think you can actually help me with that.”

Swallowing, Uhura tells herself that one does not show fear to a predator and she schools her face into a mask of mild interest. “Why do I feel like I will regret this?”

Kirk laughs, a sound not unlike a satisfied hyena. “Oh, you will love this. I want you to help me court Spock.” She must look shocked and a second passes after his announcement where she's not sure exactly what he means. Kirk tilts his head and adds, “Professionally,” like there wasn't any other way to take that. And now they are both thinking about it. He bursts out into laughter a second before she does.

He shakes with it and Uhura wipes her eyes as she tries to get herself under control. When she leaves his office she has her orders and if not respect then certainly a new-found appreciation for her captain. Five years under Kirk no longer seems like the only drawback in a dream come true.

+

She doesn't really talk to Spock until they're up in space, heading out to the edge of known space and beyond. It is when he can no longer avoid her without looking like he is avoiding her that she finally gets her chance to reestablish what they had. They've got five years to figure this out and if all he needs is time, there's plenty of that to go around.

“Spock,” she says as he goes off duty and she comes on, “wait, we need to talk.” If he were a human male he'd flinch at the choice of words and she can't say that they are accidental.

“Of course,” he says, nodding at her to lead the way out of the busy corridor. He's controlled, expressionless, and she feels a weight between them, a suffocation.

“Look,” she says on an exasperated sigh, taking his hand in hers. He pulls away but she can't let that affect her. “I know. I know you're hurting, Spock, and I just wanted to tell you that it's okay, that I'm here for you.” Her words are true enough, but she feels as if they carve her open. She loves Spock and she's willing to follow his lead.

“I am fine, Nyota, I assure you.”

She smiles with a confidence she doesn't feel. Her own loss still feels raw and hot under her skin, she can only imagine what it must be like for him. “If you do want to talk about it, or just...” she shrugs, “I don't know. Just come to me, yeah? I miss you.” 

For a moment it looks like he'll relax and lean into her, but then he takes a step back. “It's illogical to miss me as I am right here.”

Uhura nods, but she can't help thinking that he's light years away.

+

This is the problem.

Spock distances himself from her. They make some progress, and when she asks for a date or some other romantic overture, it happens like clockwork, but she sees him more often on the bridge than in her quarters and she hasn't even been to _his_. When she tries to broach any subject to do with Vulcan or his grief, he shuts down hard. Coaxing only sets them both on edge and the truth is that she's tired.

Her own grief goes unaddressed between them and she begins to resent him for his needs, even though that just makes her hate herself more. It's not his fault that he needs distance to heal – he's not human and trying to impose her own social constructs on him can only end in disaster.

Even with all that, she thinks she'd be able to endure for the hope that one day things will get better. She talks to Christine sometimes, when it all threatens to overwhelm her, and that helps a great deal. It's a friendship based, at first, on shared grief – Christine's boyfriend Roger was a researcher on the _USS Nimue_ \- but soon they discover an affinity for each other, an ease between them that expresses itself in laughter and late-night discussions about everything and nothing at all.

Spock flinches away from her touch.

After three weeks and a mission that leaves the captain in a coma Uhura has to confront him about it or end a relationship that festers between them like a rotting flower. He's sitting at their commanding officer's bedside like it's his fault and great, more guilt to add to his emotional repertoire. At this rate he's never going to let himself feel anything _good_.

“How is he?” She asks not just to start a conversation. Jim Kirk may not be her favorite person, but he's a surprisingly good captain.

Spock stiffens as she lays a hand on his shoulder. “His condition remains unchanged.”

She smiles, trusting that Kirk is too obnoxious to die. “I can watch him a while, you need to get some rest.”

He looks up at her with something like gratitude, but it disappears behind his mask within the space of a breath. “Nyota,” he says and then he falters. His hand brushes Kirk's as he vacates the uncomfortable chair. She tries to remember what that feels like, the not quite unconscious brush of his skin.

“It's alright,” she says sadly, “I'll let you know when he wakes up.”

He straightens, pulls himself together. He reaches out a hand to cup her cheek, rubbing his thumb over the soft skin below her ear. The contact is short and seems to take him considerable effort and in that moment she knows. She takes his hand and instead of pressing it closer, instead of leaning into the touch and closing her eyes, she slowly pulls his hand away and lets him down ever so gently.

“It hurts when you touch me, doesn't it?” Her eyes fill with tears. She's angry at herself, angry and heartbroken for him.

“Your emotions are very strong,” he says. That's all he has to say. Between them, there is nothing but a sea of grief and guilt and loss. Between them it does not diminish in the sharing - it multiplies, it sharpens.

+

Jim Kirk is a magnet for trouble. He gets beaten, shot at, choked or whipped on a weekly basis, most of those without his consent. Away teams have learned to get their affairs in order when the captain joins them on a mission – it is better to be prepared for the worst than finding yourself sucked dry of all salt in your body or stuck in an alien zoo and realize that you forgot to tell your mother you love her.

Uhura should have known that this mission would be neither simple nor all that diplomatic with Captain Kirk by her side. The pirates who took them hostage to get safe passage into the Neutral Zone really do not appreciate her attempts at communication, if the hole in her stomach is anything to go by. She's going to die here and it's all Jim Kirk's fault.

“'m gonna die,” she says, coughing, “an' is your fault.”

Kirk presses down on her wound with one hand while he shoots at something over his own shoulder, a mad grin on his face that makes him look feral and dangerous. There's a nasty cut on his head that oozes dark red blood.

“Don't be stupid,” he says, “of course you're not going to die.”

She raises her eyebrow, probably. “Why's that?”

“Because I won't let you, Lieutenant. I can make that an order, by the way.”

She remembers the boy she met in Iowa, whose brash confidence surprised her, but who deserved a good half of the beating he got for being a huge dick with a chip on his shoulder. And yet, even then she'd noticed him. It was hard not to notice him, final judgment notwithstanding.

He grunts heavily, deep in his throat and suddenly he slumps next to her, his gun hand uselessly sprawled on his lap. She knows he's been hit from the sudden cold sweat on his forehead and the way his other hand presses just a little bit harder into her blood-soaked wound. It hurts like fuck but that's something they have in common now.

“If I die,” she enunciates carefully, “can you tell Spock...” She tries to think of what he'll need to hear. That she loves him? Spock knows that and precious little that'll do him when she's dead. That she forgives him for being so distant? That she understands?

“Listen,” Kirk says, his voice a little thready, slipping into his natural broad accent, “no one is dying today, alright? Not you, not me, no one.”

“How d'you know?”

Kirk shrugs. “You know that crazy Vulcan up there on our ship? He's not stopping until he finds you and then he'll kill everyone who thought hurting you was a good idea. It'll be fun.”

She coughs, it might have been laughter. “You're crazy.”

“Yeah,” he says, his head rolling back against the bit of metal that's their cover. “I stole a car once, drove it right off a cliff. I spent half my teenage years drunk and fighting. I think this is actually me as a mature and responsible adult.”

There's something in his voice, a darkness that doesn't fit his flippant delivery. She doesn't have the energy to puzzle it all out, but she hopes she'll remember this if they survive. Something to focus on other than her grief, her job or the mindless gossip coursing around the ship. No, a good mystery might be just what the doctor ordered.

Kirk proves how mature and responsible he is by throwing himself at one of the pirates when he comes to take them both out. It's Kirk's supernatural luck that saves him from being skewered on a rapier – no, really, bloody pirates with _delusions_ \- before the commotion changes in quality and there's the rescue party and oh, but Leonard McCoy's frown never looked so beautiful.

+

Spock touches the captain all the time. Simple, innocent touches on arm or shoulder. He lets Kirk touch him, too, and those are probably mostly innocent but not nearly as simple. Kirk is a tactile person and if he's not draping himself in his chair or over other available surfaces he does it to people. Arms over the shoulder, hand at the small of the back, hugs, theatrical kisses to the forehead.

Kirk is fairly indiscriminate about it but he's always held back with her due, most likely, to the way they'd met. And then after the pirates, after she's back on the bridge, he just hugs her and it's a revelation. The casual touches mean nothing beyond their surface intent, but she's been starving.

+

And, okay, so she and Spock are not working out, not at all. She can feel it slipping away from her, the dreams she once had about him. Now she's harboring resentment and guilt in equal parts, waiting for this stalemate to break.

It's a little funny that they both seem to project their needs onto the captain, who looks a little haggard a few months into their mission, but always has a wicked smile for anyone who asks. It's not really fair, but she can't help herself and the rest of them probably can't either. Kirk is easy. She still wants to punch him sometimes, but he's becoming a good friend despite his personality. Spock plays chess with him. She talks about old earth music and her family. She knows that Chekov drinks with him and Sulu takes him to the gym. They all pour their troubles into him like he's some kind of waste disposal.

As a friend and more or less decent human being, Uhura has just about enough of watching Jim Kirk running himself ragged over his crew's emotional well-being. For someone so bright and open, it's a little disturbing to realize that he never really talks about himself. He's bottled tighter than even Spock, but Spock's pain is vast and all-encompassing, a black hole of sorrow. She can't really touch that and expect to come away unharmed. Kirk seems more wry and his losses can't be as immense. Besides, while she's beginning to care about Kirk, she doesn't love him, doesn't fear to break what lies between them. If she hurts him a little, she'll just back off, not much harm done.

A bottle of Scotty's moonshine is all the excuse she needs to barge into the captain's quarters after another mission gone not-quite right.

She takes in the constructed chaos of his room and Kirk's bandaged head, the way he sits with his eyes closed, back against the far wall, not defensive but not welcoming either. She sits cross-legged in front of him, putting the bottle between them both as offering and barrier. It is a focal point, something to revolve around.

“You know,” he says, tired and so quiet, like something has been broken that shouldn't, “I am sick of purple tentacle monsters shooting my crew.”

“That's oddly specific, isn't it?”

Kirk shrugs. He looks bone-deep tired and still buzzing with some kind of energy. An old-fashioned combustion motor running idle, nothing for it to move forward. “I can't go around hating the entire universe, it's bad for morale.”

He takes the bottle at that and gives her a lop-sided smirk. It's a miserable effort at levity, but she smiles anyway. “I still don't like you, but even I have to admit that you're good for the crew. They're happy.”

Kirk snorts. “Oh come now, you totally love me.”

Grinning, she shakes her head. “Not a chance, Captain.” It's comfortable now where it annoyed her before, possibly because she knows that his flirting is hardly ever serious. “But, uh, I actually came to talk to you about that.”

“About my charming personality?”

She rolls her eyes and takes the bottle from him. It tastes like nothing much but burns all the way down. “About your need to be an emotional sponge mopping up all our messes. It can't be good for you.”

“Oh my god, is this an intervention?” He takes the bottle again with an accusing frown on his face. He looks almost childish, protecting his bottle like a lifeline... kind of adorable.

“All I'm saying is that you need to take care of yourself a little more. We can handle it if you're not Mr. Congeniality all the time, you know, but we can't lose you to this-” She waves her hand at his general direction.

Now it's Kirk who rolls his eyes. “Please,” he says indignantly, “it's fine, really.”

Uhura shrugs. “Maybe, but it's only a matter of time until your self-destructive tendencies put your crew or the ship in danger.”

“I don't have self-destructive tendencies,” he says, but at her look of disbelief, he quietly adds, “not anymore.”

“Jim-”

“No, listen, I was never... like that. Maybe I was looking for something, an edge, a thrill, whatever. But I swear to you I never wanted to die, _ever_ , and there's more than enough excitement out here to last me a lifetime. Okay?”

Uhura sighs. “Sure. Just... I can't believe I'm going to say this, but if you need someone to talk...”

Kirk grins, handing her the bottle like a peace offering. “Then I'll annoy Bones or Scotty or even Spock before I even think about coming to you, but the offer is appreciated.”

“Right then,” Uhura says and takes a mouthful of the alcohol.

+

And this is how it ends.

Despite herself, she comes to like James T. Kirk. Spock nearly worships him in his stereotypically Vulcan way. Her grief fades and so does Spock's and with time things get better between them. She's happy. The Enterprise embarks on fantastic and fantastically awful missions and life is more than she could have dreamed.

It's a slow day, the mission is going well. Their new alien friends are exceptionally intelligent and very hospitable. For once, no one is going to get hurt.

She sits at her console and listens to shipboard chatter when a thought strikes her with an intensity that takes her breath away. This is as good as it's going to get, this comfortable moment categorized mostly by the absence of suffering. It's good- no, it's great, and yet she wants more out of life than comfort. She wants to burn with love and do stupid, illogical things and not be afraid of her own emotions, lest they burden the one she loves.

She does love Spock, very much so.

But the very nature of their relationship never allowed her to be truly _in love_ , stupidly, recklessly in love. It did not allow her to grieve the way she would have wanted, and if anything is certain there will be more grief in their future – such is the nature of life on a starship.

She sighs, but her heart is full of relief as she works out a logical argument that will let Spock down gently.

 

5\. Nurse Christine Chapel, USS Enterprise

It starts with a dead world.

That first time is full of refugees and broken hearts, so many of them that Christine loses track, finds herself lost in a sea of mourning. Kirk and Spock hardly register – they're healthy enough and fixed up quickly. Some cadet she's never seen before, a girl with curly hair and a severe expression, throws them out as soon as they're patched up. They're more than ready to do something stupid and heroic once more.

She forgets about them as soon as they leave her sight and she turns to dress the wounds on an unresponsive Vulcan child. They are not important.

+

After Roger leaves for an extended scientific mission, Christine finds herself enlisted in Starfleet for a not-insubstantial research grant and some of the best equipment credits can buy. The Enterprise is supposed to be her final assignment in space before joining the xenobiology chair at the University of Technical Advancement and Enlightenment in Stockholm, a partner institution of the Vulcan Science Academy. It's the most coveted and prestigious position in her field.

With the Narada, everything changes. Roger dies and she's driven by revenge and grief, even if the feelings are oddly abstract. Serving on a starship as a nurse of all things is not part of her life's ambition, but it does put her out there. Nero is dead, but there are a hundred men and women just like him, driven mad and in charge of too much power. She wants to help stop them.

Besides, where else is she going to get her hands on this many alien species on a regular basis?

+

Spock hates sickbay, not just because he hates the weaknesses of his physical body but McCoy rather delights in making the Vulcan miserable. Over the course of a month the doctor and the first officer have developed a kind of rapport that involves insults on both sides covering a reluctant yet surprisingly solid friendship. They bond over the antics of their captain, of course, who drives them both to distraction.

Kirk hates sickbay too, probably because every time he wakes up here, it means another mission has gone disastrously wrong. Although, to be fair, occasionally he lands himself in a biobed due to shipboard accidents.

For Christine, sickbay is a lot like home, only with slightly more vomit. The soft light and the open, cavernous space are unparalleled anywhere else on the ship – it's a unique place and it has a charm that makes her feel welcome. Funny, really, how she ends up liking what is a mere inconvenience to others, but even the soft beep of life-saving machinery relaxes her. Considering how much time she spends here during crazy triple shifts that Kirk seems to cause constantly, it's probably just as well.

+

Christine has a theory. Once she told M'Benga about it and he laughed, but when he left he had a thoughtful expression on his face. The theory is fairly simple, because she's a scientist and that's how a scientist knows they're onto something. When she says it out loud it sounds deceptively obvious.

“So, I think I can tell what kind of relationship people have to each other from the way they visit sickbay.”

There's more to it, of course. If the injury is limited and recovery is all but ensured, people will flock to the bedside of the afflicted with a lot of pomp and circumstance. Acquaintances who rarely speak to each other will bring large gifts and a lot of noise, an expression of their own relief more than any sympathy. But the vigil for a critical patient, the moments on a precarious balance with only McCoy's talent to hold them, that's for lovers and family alone. They will sit outside or stand in the doorway, fighting their need to be close, to give comfort to the patient and to themselves, with the knowledge that interference can cause the very thing they wish to avoid. It is these fraught, terrible moments that define the nature of the bond. The strength of it, however, is seen in the waiting. When there is nothing else to do but let the patient heal and wake up or quietly slip away, when nothing can be done, that is when the true test comes.

Some people linger like ghosts at the side of a bed, return like clockwork when their duties are done.

Nyota does so for Spock, and he for her and the captain. Kirk does it for Sulu and Nyota, Chekov and Spock – McCoy, of course, and Scotty. Kirk spends a lot of time in sickbay.

+

Christine Chapel has a thing for the quiet, handsome scientist type, and Spock is a gorgeous specimen with a voice like melted sugar and ears that beg to be licked. She's okay with that and leaves it firmly in the realm of fantasy. It isn't just that Spock seems somehow unreachable; even if he were to be amenable to her advances, Christine isn't that kind of cat. She's friends with Nyota first and foremost and that makes Spock someone else's problem.

+

It turns out that someone else is Captain Kirk.

+

She knows, probably before anyone else, that something is not quite right. Certainly before either Spock or Kirk become aware that not all is as it should be for a regular command team. They are supposed to dance between confidants and friends while maintaining a professional distance – the relationship of a man and his counselor or a politician and his advisor – trusted and intimate yet never quite so emotional. It should be easy for a Vulcan, but Kirk has never been one to play by the rules.

Kirk is magnificent, burning brightly like the stars they explore, and everyone else revolves around him, attracted by his gravitational pull.

But Kirk is also lonely. The only person who waits by his side when he is at death's door is Spock, whose distance never quite recedes even as he touches the captain's hand to reassure himself that the man is still alive. McCoy loves Kirk too much and is too much of a doctor to be able to just wait things out. When the captain is hurt, McCoy throws himself into work, avoiding that which he cannot change.

On occasion, Christine will walk by the captain's bed - more than any other patient's - and when he is alone she will softly stroke the hair away from his forehead or re-arrange the blanket to keep him warm. It happens too often not to make her notice.

+

As the head nurse in charge of patient medication and care Christine knows more about the crew and their histories than even the doctors do. She's got a good number of the little quirks memorized, allergies and long-term medications mostly, of those who end up in sickbay every other week. She knows things about people she is not supposed to know and keeps them to herself, even at the risk of causing trouble with Doctor McCoy.

She knows, for example, that Lieutenant Giotto has a chronic issue with stimulants that has the potential to be detrimental to ship's business, but has so far been under control. It's not her place to put the man on the spot and his position is both demanding and vital. There is really no cure for being department chief.

She knows that Spock is in a continuous state of discomfort due to the colder climate of the recycled atmosphere aboard ship that is perfectly adjusted to human needs but on the chilly side for a desert creature.

She is the only one, next to McCoy, who knows the full extent of Captain Kirk's allergies to standard drugs. The doctor works miracles every time Kirk gets injured.

Following a particularly nasty mission resolution that leaves most of a planet in chaos, when she can't give Kirk the relief she knows he needs, she stalks into McCoy's office and makes him hand her his glass of Saurian brandy.

“I don't know how he can stand it,” she says, pointedly not looking at the man who is seizing on the biobed. They can't administer the muscle relaxant together with the antidote to the toxin that was killing him, so they're reduced to strapping him to the bed and making sure he doesn't bite through his tongue.

McCoy looks darkly at the captain and then he smiles a terrible smile. “I think he doesn't know what it's like not to be in some small form of pain. He's not numb to it; it's just too familiar, like a persistent noise you only notice in its absence.”

She knows something else about the captain as well, something that even McCoy might not know and she is loath to mention unless and until it becomes a matter of life and death. The Starfleet records about the whole thing are pitifully vague or classified far above her security rating. The thing is, she's the one who keeps medical records and histories up to date, and she needs to read them most carefully. The captain had been sick a lot, injured more than that, and a bit of a problem child before he was about thirteen. Then there's a blank spot where regular hospital visits and checkups should be. The record picks up again when he's fifteen and suddenly there are more psychiatrists and psychologists and telepathic therapists than she can shake a stick at and one name she recognizes as someone who works with victims of natural disasters and war almost exclusively. It's not hard to trace it back from that to the colony and its atrocities.

It's a wonder that Kirk is even functional. But he is as resilient as a Terran cockroach and as likely to propagate, too.

+

She notices a few months into the mission. It's nothing special, just a few scrapes and bruises on the captain and a dislocated shoulder for Spock, so Christine has no need to feel guilty for letting her mind wander. Spock's been here a lot, she knows that because Spock makes her heart beat a little bit faster every time he walks through the door. But then, Kirk's been in sickbay more than anyone and that's when it hits her for the first time.

Whenever the captain gets hurt, Spock hovers. Her data is a little fuzzy, because Spock tends to get injured just as much and occasionally worse than whatever the captain's got, usually from trying to put himself between Kirk and danger, but once she pings on it she can't let it go.

+

When it begins, when the love grows to be habit, she is relieved and grateful on Kirk's behalf. He is not one to ask for intimacy, not the kind that comes with friends and lovers and family instead of people who happen to enjoy each others' bodies. It is good that Kirk is letting someone in, even if the intricacies involved make her worry.

Tragedy is a constant companion, life and death in a tug of war, until they are worn down. Kirk has been born with it, grown into and around it, made tragedy his bitch when it was clear that it was either that or give up. And Kirk does not give up.

For the rest of them, tragedy comes as they go along, piling on the burdens until they break. The loss of a friend on an away mission. The loss of love. The slow, inexorable weight of time.

She misses Roger, sometimes. In the end, she did love him, even when he was more in love with his work than with her. Nyota understands her and that's a tragedy in itself. When they share stories of the dead and their lost love over bitter alcohol, they are sisters.

When it begins, Nyota is her prime concern. Whatever affection the Captain or Spock hold in Christine's mind, Nyota is the one who meets her as an equal, who sees her truly and fully. She thinks she could love either of these strange and brilliant men, but she knows that she loves Nyota and is prepared to torture Jim Kirk with a hypo for all of eternity if it will make Nyota smile.

Nyota smiles, despite a traitorous sheen of moisture in her eyes. “It wasn't going to work,” she says, a little wistful, “and I want someone who doesn't look right through me when I stand in front of them.”

Christine knows things. She knows that Nyota chooses her words carefully; that when she stands like that, her head tilted slightly, she is nervous. Sometimes Christine does not notice what is right in front of her, but she notices now.

There is no need to be nervous.

+

For all his logic and intelligence, Spock can be stupid. Mostly he's stupid about the Captain and that comes as no surprise to anyone except the two of them. Dr. McCoy has taken to muttering somewhat lewd encouragements when he watches them, out of earshot even of sensitive Vulcan ears. Christine has no stake in their awkward and entirely mutual repressed attraction except for the curiosity of a scientist who sees her work proven and the interest each crewmember has in the continued safe and efficient running of the ship. And there's a large sum of credits riding on when, exactly, they'll get their act together, but she's refrained from putting in more than a few herself, feeling perhaps that it would be crass to gamble on someone's ultimate happiness.

Besides, if Spock ever finds out about this, there will be blood.

Not that he will. There's a willful blindness about him when it comes to certain illogical traits among his human compatriots, including but not limited to outrageous bets among the crew and the tender feelings of one James Tiberius Kirk.

One thing they all know is that the Captain loves Spock, though the extent is unclear to everyone but the closest to him. McCoy is probably organizing the seating charts for the wedding in his head, while the rest of the crew think of them merely as a good target for speculation – friends with benefits maybe, brothers in arms certainly, but lovers-til-death-do-us-part? It's a game, a way to pass the time.

Christine, however, sees Kirk's face when Spock's brain is stolen and the breathing, functioning corpse lies heavy on the useless biobed. She sees him as they return, worn but triumphant, from the planet where McCoy worked a medical miracle and there is no doubt in her mind. There can be no doubt after the thirty-seven times Spock lands himself in sickbay with serious injuries and Kirk waits patiently through all of them, never quite giving in to despair.

As a Vulcan Spock was likely never taught to pick up on non-verbal emotional cues, despite his half-human heritage. They would have prioritized his fitting seamlessly into Vulcan society. He exhibits the confusion of a man constantly translating the garbled words of an alien world into his own language and coming up short. That's how Nyota puts it when she's maudlin.

The logic of emotional responses escapes him. It would be fascinating to anyone versed in human psychology, versed in the complex and tangled web of human responses, to study someone so naïve to basic human interaction. Christine refrains from bringing up the subject with their resident psych expert Dr. Dehner, mostly because the woman scares her just a little and the idea of Spock poked and prodded like a lab rat makes her shudder.

Spock is oblivious to the Captain's particular brand of love sick puppy eyes and this is likely to be because Kirk never once follows the rules when it's important, even if they are unwritten rules of courtship. Never one to be traditional Kirk opts for ritualistic self-sacrifice instead of roses and a box of chocolate, and it works to an extent. Spock walks around for days after each occurrence with a confused eyebrow permanently raised.

+

Observation is at best an ineffective tool in advanced scientific study, but invaluable when generating hypotheses. As she observes Spock in sickbay, leaning nearly defeated with his head against the spotless wall, his body lax and lacking control, she finds that her attention drifts to the man who causes such a breakdown, the man who lies motionless and pale under a stasis field that is the only thing between him and death. The machines breathe for him, simulate the beating of his heart and wait for that tiny spark of minute activity in his brain to bloom into life again. Jim Kirk is as good as dead and yet she cannot find it in herself to grieve. He's come back from worse situations.

“I should think it is illogical for you to be in sickbay and not have someone look at your injuries.”

Spock blinks at her, unseeing. His mind is elsewhere. “It is illogical to remain and yet I can no more move from this spot than I can will my heart to stop beating.”

Christine runs a medical scan on the Vulcan and purses her lips. He's got several phaser burns and bruising, the signs of a desperate fight. She's heard bits and pieces out of Ensign Kilmer as they tried to save his leg, how everyone had just gone crazy down on the planet attacking each other. Injuries, even death, are hardly new to the crew, but this was different. Getting blasted by your commanding officer has to be a new and cruel kind of trauma, especially considering the affection the whole crew holds for Kirk in particular.

“What happened down there?” Spock probably won't answer, but the thoughts are enough to distract him from the dermal regenerator she's pointing at his face.

The injuries have told their own story anyway. Christine doesn't know the sequence of events, but the bruises on Kirk's neck are the exact size of Spock's hands. Kilmer got shot at by Louis, who died from a severed spine – the security officer got his neck broken and Kilmer is closed-mouthed about it so it's most likely either Kirk or Spock who did the deed. No one wants to talk about what happened to Jamie.

“You see,” Christine says, “things like this, they're not anyone's fault. Some mind control pollen make people have sex with anyone in the vicinity, you can't really hold on to grudges after.” And they hadn't, really. The pollen could have destroyed a lesser crew, but the Enterprise has the best of the best. They got through it and this, too, they will endure.

“He will forgive you,” she says, a little fondly. “And he'll need you around to forgive him when the time comes.”

Spock focuses on her as she crouches in front of him, close enough to apply some regenerative salve to the nasty cut on his head. “Forgiveness is a human trait; it is illogical to assign oneself blame over occurrences that are out of one's control.” He sounds hollow.

She swallows the first impulse to tell him exactly what she thinks of his logic. The man is hurting, no point in digging her thumb into the wound. “The Captain is human enough for both of you. He'll need to be told that this wasn't his fault.” So does Spock, but she isn't going to say that and risk a complete shutdown.

“If he regains his faculties,” Spock says, measured and controlled, “I will be sure to enlighten him.”

“He will,” Christine says with the certainty of hero worship and experience. “Jim Kirk clings to life like a pitbull to a burglar.”

Spock tilts his head slightly. “I do not understand the reference.”

“Not many people do these days, but my dad was a dog breeder and I was a kid who'd read just about everything that had to do with puppies. Pitbulls were a breed of dog designed to be lethal fighters. Tenacious little beasts with jaws like a shark's, ugly as sin but quite gentle unless their baser instincts were triggered somehow. Some of them would not let go of an opponent unless it was dead, sometimes not even then.”

Spock's gaze drifts toward their Captain, laid out like a corpse for burial. “Perhaps there is some merit to the comparison.”

Christine smiles, a bitter memory in the back of her mind. “As a species and as the guardians or our companions, we did badly by them, Mr. Spock. The breed was blamed for a multitude of human failings. There was a movement to euthanize them, but then the Eugenics Wars started and they were abused as terrifying weapons. We used them were we could and blamed them for what we made of them. They did not survive our so-called enlightenment. Beasts like that had no place in a peaceful society.”

Her eyes follow the artificially slow rise and fall of Kirk's chest. “Perhaps the pitbulls were not the last of their kind. Do you know what he would do if he were to lose his place as captain?”

Spock doesn't reply but then Christine doesn't expect it. It's a rhetorical question, in a way, even though she hopes to hell someone knows the answer to it. She hopes there is something in Kirk's life that can anchor him. “Anyway, it's probably a moot point. At the rate he's going, there won't be much left of him to retire.”

“You believe he wishes to destroy himself?” There is some alarm in that usually controlled voice.

Christine shrugs. “He watches out for everyone else first, so his own well-being is probably really far down some mental list of his. I believe he considers himself expendable, more so than anyone else on this ship.”

“That is illogical,” Spock says, almost by rote, but Christine can somehow tell that there's a storm of feeling underneath.

“It's probably logical to him,” she says. “It's funny how much logic depends on the relative value of a man's life.”

There is a long silence that breaks only as the sensors around Kirk blare to life, alerting them in no uncertain terms that something is happening. Heart rate, breathing, cortical activity, everything explodes in arrhythmic cacophony. He's either dying or waking up, but neither is going to be a gentle ride.

+

In the end, it is both easier and harder than she expected. Neither Spock nor Kirk are very good at relationships and the pressure of command is not to be underestimated. There are near-misses that set the whole ship on edge and fights so epic no poet could think of them.

They are still much the same, waiting for the other to wake up after a bad mission, hovering just in sight when things have gone wrong. It's the other times that make the difference. Christine sees them taking lunch together on a slow day, playing chess quietly in a rec room after hours. It's the little things that change, the sedimentary construction of something to live for.


End file.
